AMU alumna awarded prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship

Ms Asiya Islam, an alumna of Aligarh Muslim University, has been awarded the prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship to pursue PhD in Sociology at the University of Cambridge. The highly competitive Gates Cambridge Scholarships are funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and are awarded to 55 intellectually outstanding students from around the world with a capacity for leadership and commitment to improving the lives of others.

Ms Islam pursued Bachelor’s degree in Communicative English, with Women’s Studies as one of her subsidiaries, at AMU Women’s College from 2006 to 2009. She graduated with the highest marks in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and was awarded the Dr Zakir Hussain Medal for academic excellence and outstanding talent. Ms Islam then went to the London School of Economics for Master’s in Gender, Media and Culture. She graduated from LSE in 2010 with Distinction and received the Best Degree Performance Award.

Since November 2010, Ms Islam has been working as policy adviser on equality and diversity at LSE. She has also been writing for The Guardian, New Statesman, Open Democracy, Sunday Guardian, etc. as a freelance journalist. She has been invited to deliver lectures and participate in panel discussions at various institutions in the UK.

Ms Islam will be leaving LSE this October to take up her place at the University of Cambridge where she will be researching the experiences of women who migrate from small towns to the increasingly globalised city of New Delhi, focussing on how they negotiate their mobility within the context of the heightened discourse on sexual violence in the city.